Armee wins stage 18 of Vuelta a España, Froome pads lead

by Shane Stokes

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Belgian Sander Armee (Lotto Soudal) was best out of a large breakaway group on Thursday’s 18th stage of the Vuelta a España, pressing ahead with Julian Alaphilippe (QuickStep Floors) and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) before the final climb and then dropping each of them in turn. He reached the line 31 seconds ahead of Lutsenko, taking his first pro win, with Giovanni Visconti (Bahrain-Merida) coming through for third.

“It’s fantastic,” the 31-year-old said. “This is already my eight year as a pro rider. I had to wait quite a long time to win a race. I came close a couple of times, I did my work for the team… but at this Vuelta I get the chance to put myself in a free role and do my own race. It was the third time I was in the breakaway, I felt better and better during the stage and I just went full gas on the last climb.”

The big news was the recovery of race leader Chris Froome (Team Sky), who bounced back from an off day on Wednesday to a more solid ride en route to the finish at the Alto de Santo Toribio de Liébana, He and Team Sky stayed in touch when Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) launched several attacks on the preceding Collada de la Hoz climb, then the Briton surged close to the finish.

Contador and Michael Woods (Cannondale-Drapac) stayed with him and led him over the finish line, while Froome’s main rivals all lost time. Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) and Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin) surrendered four seconds, while Froome’s closest challenger Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) conceded 21 seconds. The latter is now one minute 37 back with three days remaining.

Early on, 20 riders broke clear. Armee, Lutsenko, Alaphilippe and Visconti were all present, and the group built a decisive lead of over 13 minutes.

Today’s feature image is from the Tour of Britain and is by Richard Blaxall/SWpix.com.

Simon Wile

Absolutely amazing feature image! Wow!

Michele

Great (if I can use that term) piece on Ben King.

It’s not something that’s spoken about all that often. Rouleur also did a very interesting piece on eating disorders some time back.

Glad to see Ben speak up/out …

Andy B

Is it April Fools day Already??
Cleat based power meter.. how does that go with walking

Ssanchez

They say the pads are replaceable, and you’d assume they are robust enough to not fail under body weight while walking around the cafe, or running up Mt Ventoux. I haven’t read all the details, but perhaps there will be a ride weight limit?
There’s no mention how they will fare in a crash or if you unclip trying to stay upright during an “Oh F#$k” moment. Every crash I’ve been involved in has destroyed at least one cleat.
Stack height looks very high, too.
With 15hr battery life, most avid cyclists will be changing battery every 1-2 weeks! That’s ridiculous. Compared to Stages (200+hrs) or the Powertap P1 pedals (60hrs).
Who are they targeting with this product?

Andy B

Very true about stack height, that would be awful for bike fit if you need a shim too..
very inefficient

I guess the concept is so you can ride multiple bikes and carry power across with you.. but pedal based seems a lot more robust and practical
and pedals don’t take long to swap

What i thought when reading that summary. Haven’t we just had one of these that’s gone badly.

MadBlack

Not sure how the fact that Albert Einstein once upon a time attended a Swiss university adds credibility to the cleat based power meter story?! Also a pledge for just €100,000 doesn’t fill me with confidence they will be able to overcome the technical challenge in reliable mass production of the product. But good luck to them. Would be interesting to keep following the venture.

Ssanchez

Is CT covering/reporting any of the UCI MTB Worlds in Cairns this week?

absolutely, not often aussies are mixing it up at the pointy end of a MTB race. especially in our own backyard it would be good to know what’s happening. Red Bull has live streaming for the XCO tomorrow (womens and mens) and DHO sunday.

Bryan Duggan

The Ras na mBan is a wonderful race, in a very picturesque part of Ireland. Shame it doesn’t get more coverage. Good to see it on here.

It was only a matter of time before companies and startups attempted the cleat based power meter. Don’t think it is the best place to put a power meter mostly because of wear and tear on that part. The challenge they are going to face is how to protect the accelerometer from repetitive damage from walking. If it was priced under $200 then maybe but at that price point they are going to have a hard time competing with the crank based and spider based powermeters.